HOUSE OF GUCCI is a ramshackle accretion of muddled plots studded with oddly incoherent character development and performances that range from stock (Al Pacino) to enigmatic (Adam Driver). This overlong effort takes a tale of sex, money, and power among the super rich and renders it into a dull slog brightened only by Lady Gaga’s… Read More »
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE
For all the meticulous detail in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE about the early life of Tammy Faye Bakker, this biopic about the rise of fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker has an ending that is curiously sparse. It’s not just Tammy Faye’s second marriage to Roe Messner that is erased, though he does… Read More »
NIGHTMARE ALLEY
Flames are never far from Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), starting with those lapping near, but not too near, his heels as he exits the house that he’s just set alight over the body he’s deposited beneath the floorboards. In Guillermo del Toro’s oneiric vision of William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, NIGHTMARE ALLEY. Notice, too, the… Read More »
ANTLERS
I don’t know that I subscribe to the idea that there are some works of prose that are “unfilmable.” This is not to say that a successsful translation from one art form to another doesn’t require a certain amount of compromise around the source material. Prose, while relying on the eyes in order to absorb… Read More »
THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2
There are many words that spring to mind when viewing THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2, and few of them are laudatory. The twisted humor of Charles Addams’ original cartoon, or of the cult-classic of the 60s television series, or of the previous incarnation of the franchise are little in evidence in this dreary exercise in, of… Read More »
CANDYMAN
CANDYMAN wants to do more than creep you out with mere gore. To that end, this sequel to the original does more than ignore the three subsequent films in that previous franchise, though it does, like those other films, drench the screen in blood from time to time. Here, though, the true horror that it… Read More »
SPIRAL: FROM THE BOOK OF SAW
Chris Rock is a man of enormous talent, enough money to do whatever he wants professionally, and the clout to do so. This is why we have the puckishly trenchant documentary about race and beauty standards, GOOD HAIR, and the long-running television series, Everybody Hates Chris. Alas, it’s also why, as star and one of… Read More »
FRENCH EXIT
FRENCH EXIT is a deft comedy that is low key but also pointed and deeply affecting, despite concerning itself with the trials and tribulations of a woman who has raised superficiality and self-absorption to a high art.
GODZILLA VS. KONG
If there were special awards for truth in advertising when it comes to movie titles, GODZILLA VS. KONG would sweep them. Essentially, that is all there is to this extravagant spree of special effects and occasional camp. The plot, and there is a great deal of it, is completely subservient to upping the ante when… Read More »
CHAOS WALKING
CHAOS WALKING is a somber affair told in muddy earth tones and moribund action. Based on the book The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, it presents New World in the year 2257, a distant planet colonized by religious humans who have brought with them much of what they should have left back… Read More »
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